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			<h1>A shift leader position?</h1>
			<p>Day 01596: <time>Saturday, 2019 July 20</time></p>
		</header>
<img src="/img/CC_BY-SA_4.0/y.st./weblog/2019/07/20.jpg" alt="Stacked chairs and rolled mats" class="framed-centred-image" width="800" height="480"/>
<section id="dreams">
	<h2>Dream journal</h2>
	<p>
		I dreamed my siblings and I were in someone&apos;s home, helping them fix up the place to prepare for the arrival of their date.
		We took too long though, and their date arrived.
		It Mister Reeves!
		They wanted to keep us secret from Mister Reeves though, so they hid us and distracted them while we tried to finish up.
		They lied that the two of them were alone, but Mister Reeves could tell somehow, and joked about being jealous.
		As we finished up last-minute tasks, I noticed more an more strangers around, and it turned out they were suppposed to be helping too, and were likewise being kept secret, but instead of helping, they were sitting around on break eating dinner they&apos;d made the homeowner prepare as compensation while said homeowner was already busy.
		I couldn&apos;t even finish up with them in the way, not to mention that they were going to get our cover blown by just sitting out in the open.
		I started hovering around and flying, finishing what I could, then I swooped down and cast a spell on us all, removing us and all trace of us from the home.
		The strangers thought I&apos;d made a mistake and gotten us trapped in &quot;tomorrow&quot;, but we were fine, and I could get us out as soon as I could think of a place to put us besides back in that home.
		Besides, it was their own fault for being a counterproductive and lazy instead of actually helping.
		Also, we weren&apos;t in tomorrow, so I don&apos;t know where they got that idea.
	</p>
	<p>
		I woke up before I could wind down enough to even try to figure out where to put us.
		It was too early though, and I went back to sleep.
	</p>
	<p>
		I dreamed I built several decorative walls out of painted rocks.
		Someone didn&apos;t like where I&apos;d built them and asked me to move them, so I picked up the first rock to begin undoing my work.
		They said I should only move one rock at a time because they would be too heavy otherwise, so I pointed out that this one one rock, but the rocks were a bit large.
		They weren&apos;t happy with my having to lift rocks that size.
		But then, I wanted a photograph before I lost all I&apos;d done, so I said as much and started putting that single rock back.
		I stood back to take the photo, and all the other rocks had somehow vanished.
		They&apos;d done something.
		I expressed my frustration with their not even having let me take a photograph, and they said my walls weren&apos;t as good as my next walls in the place they&apos;d asked me to move them would be, so I said there&apos;d be no next walls.
		I hadn&apos;t even gotten to record my work.
		Why would I even bother starting again here?
		These people obviously didn&apos;t appreciate my efforts enough to even let me record them before destroying what I&apos;d spent hours doing.
	</p>
</section>
<section id="diet">
	<h2>Dietary intake</h2>
	<p>
		For breakfast, I had a bowel of cereal.
		For lunch and dinner, I had a soft taco each.
		I also snacked on 43 pistachios.
	</p>
</section>
<section id="Minetest">
	<h2>Minetest</h2>
	<img src="/img/CC_BY-SA_3.0/minetest.net./weblog/2019/07/20.png" alt="Somniphobia Headquarters" class="framed-centred-image" width="1024" height="600"/>
	<p>
		I&apos;ve set up my base of operations underground.
		I call it Somniphobia Headquarters.
		Somniphobia is the fear of sleep.
		It doesn&apos;t quite fit the feeling of the area, but it was the closest I could come up with that fit the lack of sleep theme.
		Basically though, it&apos;s not a fear of sleep that haunts the area.
		It&apos;s a fear of waking up.
		To get out of there and back to the surface, I have to leave a stack of pine needle nodes in my path.
		To go back down safely, I need to stand on top of the stack and clear it node by node.
		As long as my pattern of travel alternates between up and down, the path remains usable.
		However, if I die down below, I&apos;ll wake up on the surface, and I&apos;ll have never gone back up, so I won&apos;t have the stack of nodes to get me back down safely.
		I won&apos;t be able to get back to Somniphobia Headquarters in any easy way whatsoever.
	</p>
	<p>
		I built the base out of silver sandstone.
		Silver sand is somewhat common in the area, and I didn&apos;t bring much of anything from the surface with me.
		I did bring a pine sapling, so I could have used wood, but wood is scarce down there.
		With only one small spot in which the sun can shine that deep, I can only grow one tree at a time.
		The wood is better off saved for more important things.
		I also could have used stone.
		However, that either means using cobble, which would be ugly and lazy, or using stone blocks and stone bricks, which require me to cook cobble in the furnace to make.
		Again, that requires wood, and didn&apos;t seem worth it.
		Besides, all stone options would blend in with the surrounding stone too much.
		Silver sand just seems like the best option.
	</p>
	<p>
		It&apos;s worth noting that I can&apos;t dig deeper while growing a tree.
		I need to continue to carry the sunlight down with me if I&apos;m to make such a deep mine feasible, but the tree also needs the sunlight to grow.
		I can&apos;t use it for both.
	</p>
	<p>
		I thought I&apos;d be staying underground exclusively for the time being, but I don&apos;t think I will after all.
		Having the base down there means I don&apos;t have to run to the surface for every little thing, but there&apos;s still work to be done on the surface too, and the variety is nice.
		I ran to the surface and grabbed all my gravel to take down with me.
		I&apos;ve come up with a better way to mine it for flint.
		When I&apos;m not using my laptop, I can open Minetest and bind the left mouse button down, so it digs without me.
		I just need to put myself on top of a huge stack of gravel and let the game do all the work while I do other things.
	</p>
	<p>
		This gravel stack idea serves a different purpose, too.
		I sort of got distracted today playing Minetest and didn&apos;t get any coursework done.
		If I put myself on top of such a tower before closing the game, I&apos;m not so tempted to open it up and play again.
		And if I do, I find myself on top of a stack that it&apos;ll take me almost an hour of boring gameplay to get down from so I can do something interesting.
		Once I&apos;ve committed to stopping for the time being, I can&apos;t really play without an hour of leaving my laptop alone, which I wouldn&apos;t do as long as I have coursework to work on.
		But if I leave the game running when I go to bed, it&apos;ll be ready for me to get a little gameplay in the next day before I commit to putting it down for the day again.
	</p>
</section>
<section id="promotion">
	<h2>A promotion offered</h2>
	<p>
		Today, when I got to work, the head manager taught me how to check myself into the cash register.
		Like cash drops, till check-outs are usually performed by the managers, but the head manager got tired of always having to perform cash drops during our busiest time, which is usually when the register&apos;s cash total gets high enough for the register to refuse further orders and demand a drop and taught at least a couple of us how to do it ourselves and authorised us to do that.
		I figured this was an extension of that, although I guess that was a bad call on my part.
		The head manager does a register checkout only about twice each day, once for each the front and back registers, and it&apos;s not during peak hours.
	</p>
	<p>
		Later in the day, they offered me a promotion.
		Seriously?
		I think I mentioned in my journal before that while I still didn&apos;t feel right seeking a shift leader position, because I planned to get out of here as soon as I could and didn&apos;t want to deliberately leave my bosses high and dry, my loyalty to this place has greatly diminished due to the head manager&apos;s behaviour, and if I was ever offered a promotion before left, I&apos;d take it.
		Or maybe I said I&apos;d apply for the position if one was announced?
		I don&apos;t remember.
		But I wasn&apos;t going to let my job hunt stop me from taking a shift leader position, and I wasn&apos;t going to let having a shift leader position (if I got one) keep me from taking better job.
		Of course, I suppose that sentiment is moot now.
		I&apos;m stuck here for the time being; I&apos;m stuck here until I get my face and voice fixed, so I can make a proper first impression at my next place of employment.
		Perhaps I should even finish getting my belly fixed before I try to leave as well, though my belly might already be flat by the time I can get my voice fixed.
		I only planned to take the job if offered in order to help my résumé and gain job experience though.
		I hear much of the time, shift leaders make the same wages as the rest of the crew, and even during times they make more, it&apos;s only twenty-five cents more per hour.
		I guess that adds up, but so does the extra stress of the job.
		It&apos;s not worth it, most likely.
		Not at this place.
	</p>
	<p>
		The head manager gave me five pages of questions with corresponding answers I&apos;m supposed to memorise; things I&apos;m required to know as a manager, and though they didn&apos;t say it, questions I&apos;ll be tested on.
		I&apos;ve heard other shift-leaders-to-be talk about getting tested on it.
		Some of it&apos;s pretty obvious stuff, that anyone paying attention figures out quickly.
		Some of it&apos;s stuff that lesser employees such as myself are required to know just to function in the work environment.
		Some of it&apos;s information that&apos;s so readily available when you need it because it&apos;s posted on the walls in the area you&apos;d use the information, but that I never bothered to memorise specifically because I didn&apos;t need to know it off the top of my head.
		But now I do.
		Some of it&apos;s oddly-specific descriptions of products.
		Some of it&apos;s random trivia that no one that works here has a use for, besides to pass this test.
		Some of it&apos;s actually related to responsibilities I&apos;d have as a shift leader, so really should know.
		One question though ... I just don&apos;t get what it means.
		&quot;What are the four steps to an employee?&quot;
		Huh?
		I&apos;m guessing it&apos;s asking what the four steps to <strong>*training*</strong> an employee are though, based on what it says the steps are.
	</p>
	<p>
		I got to thinking before my first break.
		I don&apos;t even think the head manager likes me.
		So why would they choose <strong>*me*</strong> of all people for a promotion?
		I guess I&apos;m one of the few competent people here though, so what choice did they have?
		Competent people don&apos;t tend to work minimum wage jobs.
		But then I thought even more.
		Does the head manager even like <strong>*anyone*</strong> here?
		They don&apos;t seem to.
		So I guess not really liking me doesn&apos;t hurt my odds as much as I initially thought it would.
		I&apos;m an obedient employee, not to mention more mentally capable than most people here.
		I&apos;m a computer science student, for crying out loud!
		My obedience and the fact that I&apos;m no idiot both make me useful to the head manager, so I guess it makes sense that they&apos;re wanting to make better use of that.
	</p>
	<p>
		The head manager says they know my work ethic is spot on, but I need to learn to take charge more if I&apos;m to be a shift leader.
		I was actually going to disagree with the first point here in my journal, but I guess I can&apos;t.
		I though my work ethic had gone down considerably since the head manager trashed my morale, but it really hasn&apos;t.
		I can&apos;t stand to sit there and do nothing while I&apos;m on the clock.
		It makes me feel restless.
		So I&apos;m always trying to be productive.
		As for taking charge, I couldn&apos;t agree more.
		I suck at taking charge, but its a skill anyone in management needs to have.
		It&apos;s something I&apos;ll work on improving over the next while.
	</p>
	<p>
		As we were closing, they showed me how to close down the registers for the night.
		They also told me a sneaky way to tell people to get back to work when they&apos;re standing around: give them a specific job.
		You don&apos;t have to call them out on what they&apos;re doing, just give them some specific task and ask them to complete it.
		I&apos;m not sure I&apos;m ready to directly tell people to stop loafing around, but I can certainly ask them to do some specific task that does need to get done.
	</p>
</section>
<section id="drudgery">
	<h2>Drudgery</h2>
	<p>
		I didn&apos;t get any coursework done today like I should have.
		I did get course registration complete for next term though.
		I&apos;ll be taking <span title="Software Engineering 2">CS 4403</span> and <span title="Advanced Networking and Data Security">CS 4404</span>.
		I can&apos;t say I&apos;m excited.
		I guess I should be.
		One&apos;s a course on security.
		That&apos;s something I&apos;ll actually use in my personal life, regardless of what job I end up with.
		But this school ...
		It&apos;s hard to be excited about doing <strong>*anything*</strong> within its virtual walls.
	</p>
</section>
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